


You Rest Your Bones (Somewhere Far From My Arms)

by Fweeble



Category: Tokyo Ghoul
Genre: M/M, Unbeta'd, spoilers for chapters 136; 137; and possibly the succeeding chapters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-07
Updated: 2014-09-15
Packaged: 2018-02-16 13:40:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,300
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2271813
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fweeble/pseuds/Fweeble
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hide thinks he understands, too. The moon, hanging bright and alone in the dark expanse of the night sky reminds him of Kaneki; solitary and devastating, desolate, in its beauty.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Hide had always known that Kaneki didn’t need him –Kaneki didn’t  _need_ anyone.  
  
Even as he sat, a clear divide between himself and the rest of the class, buried in a book, always a book, he was not an outsider, an observer longing for inclusion. Kaneki Ken did not draw lines, did not keep others ‘out’ and himself ‘in’; he had no need for what is beyond his fingers, what was beyond his sight.

Such a lonely sight, Hide remembers thinking before he reached out, because such a solitary existence should never be left to be. Kaneki might not  _need_  Hide, but that was okay, because friendship wasn’t about needing someone, it was about understanding and a place to belong. It was expanding your horizons; jumping with your eyes closed and relishing the sweet summer sun on your skin and knowing the dewy grass below will catch you in the end.

—

It is their second year of middle school and, during a balmy late-spring session, their teacher begins a discussion on Natsume Souseki.

“What,” their teacher asks, sweeping a pointed look across the classroom, “would you think of the line ‘The moon is beautiful tonight, isn’t it’? What message would you think your companion was trying to convey?” There are bored sighs ringing in the air, shoulders slouched and heads nodding, but Kaneki is leaning forward, eager. Hide can feel the low thrum of Kaneki’s delight, literature has always been his fascination, his hunger. “The famous novelist and translator, Natsume Souseki, believed the Japanese language and culture is such that these words alone would appropriately express the western concept of ‘love.’ A woman of true Japanese spirit would understand these words for what they are.”  
  
Hide thinks he understands, too. The moon, hanging bright and alone in the dark expanse of the night sky reminds him of Kaneki; solitary and devastating, desolate, in its beauty.

—  
  
“What –” First Class Inspector Amon swallows and stares intently down into his bowl and Hide knows. The man is dogged, determined to exterminate the poison that lies deep in the world, festering and growing, warping the world –his world. Hide knows he is determined, implacable in his pursuit for justice, but at the core, he is a warm, compassionate man. While his anger and hatred for Ghouls run deep, his empathy runs deeper still, and it pains him to see such a man suffering for his sake, for his feelings.  
  
“What kind of person is Kaneki?” Hide asks lightly, smiling as the inspector nods silently, the knot between Amon’s shoulders bulges just a fraction more and Akira straightens just the slightest. “Kaneki… Kaneki is an awkward person. He likes abstract, confusing things and novels soaked in loaded prose and hidden meanings. He can unravel the mysteries of language, feel the weight of words, understand the might of the meanings of what is left unsaid, but sometimes I don’t think he ever quite understood there was no code to crack for life.”

Amon looks pained, as if he regrets asking, and Hide wonders what wretchedness must be coloring his face as he puts more effort into smiling, “In the end, Kaneki Ken is a good person trying to be a kind person.”

“We’ll find him,” Amon assures, all sharp, structured lines and solemnity, “Don’t worry, Nagachika.”

 _He is trying to be a kind person, he just doesn’t comprehend the true meaning of it yet_ , is a dead, festering thing caught in Hide’s throat, so instead he laughs, “Of course we will! And we’ll all go to Big Girl and order the biggest hamburger steaks they have and it’ll be on him. He owes me at least that much for worrying me so.”

\--

Special Class Inspector Marude regards him coolly across his pristine, polished desk and asks, “Do you need to write a testament?”  
  
Marude’s words ring harshly in Hide –they are raiding Anteiku in order to root out ghouls. The kind, elderly Yoshimura, the poised and graceful Irima, the boisterous and friendly Koma, the lovely, aloof Touka, the cute, excitable Roma –even that poisonous senior, Nishiki… They aren’t evil to be eradicated, they aren’t stains to be bleached, and… Anteiku is the last clear connection Hide has with Kaneki.

It feels like Hide will lose more than just the quaint, comfortable coffee shop where he gossiped with Kaneki over his newest, delusional crush or the convenient new workplace for his newly turned ghoul best friend. Losing Anteiku means there is no going back, it means even if he ever sees Kaneki again, Kaneki won’t be returning.

“Yes,” Hide decides, “I do.”

“A girlfriend,” the inspector pries, even if his satisfaction shows in his sharp, satisfied smile, “Or Kaneki-kun?”  
  
“If only,” Hide laughs, “I’m an only child; leaving my parents behind with only a casket to bury would be the greatest slight I could do to them.” Marude’s expression darkens. “If the worst were to happen, they would be lucky to have even  _that_.”

Hide smiles, “Every child, no matter how undutiful, will always return home in the end, Special Class Inspector Marude.”

“What a charming outlook on life you have. If only reality was so kind.”

—

The Kaneki he finds looks as if he had clawed his way out of the inked pages of a Takatsuki Sen novel. Clad in dark, dark clothes and even darker blood, Kaneki is an amalgamation of horror and anguish, a creature craving and needing, distraught over its own inability to ease its own suffering.

What kind of world have you found yourself in, Hide wonders with grief, that you think yourself so stained in darkness that any light that falls upon you is trickery and illusion?

Hide pulls Kaneki in close and asks selfishly, “…Sorry. Can you fight with all you’ve got, just one more time?” And selfishly, he pushes Kaneki down until wet, blunt teeth scrape the meat of his shoulder and he hears the gasping sob of “Hide.” Selfishly, he grips white hair and pushes more insistently until he feels the pain of tearing, of consuming.  
  
Selfishly, Hide asks, “Kaneki Ken, don’t forget the beauty of the moon when I’m gone.” 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for unhinged chapter 136 Kaneki. Thank you homonyanko for beta’ing this and ensuring this mess is intelligible! <3 All mistakes you still see are due to my own error.

Hide is like the wind.  
  
He is wild, uncontainable, churning energy; he is the summer wind that steals hats, playfully tugs at skirts, dancing in a shower of jade leaves. He is the soft caress of the spring air; constant and familiar. He is the sea breeze; the smell of home, a place to return, a place to rest, a safe harbor.   
  
Wherever Kaneki is, he knows Hide is near, because there is nowhere the wind cannot reach. The world is its playground, it has free reign.  
  
Hide is –

–shelter, friend, family, home  
  
–something to protect, to  safeguard, to cherish  
  
–the most important, irreplaceable, unattainable  
  
–food.

  
No –not food, never food.   
  
But he smells like food, sweet and tantalizing; like salvation, like a curse.   
  
That’s why –that’s why Kaneki can’t stay; can’t stay weak, can’t stay uncertain, can’t stay near,  _can’t stay with Hide._    
  
Because the weak, the powerless, they have no right to hold something precious.   
  
This world is a world of divisions; of those who have power and wield it and those who lack it, who succumb to those with it. The strong thrive; the strong live; the strong consume. To live is to eat; to eat is to live. There is only food and those who eat.  
  
So what is Hide?   
  
_Food._  
  
What is Touka?  
  
_Food._  
  
What are Banjou, Hinami, the ghouls who look to him for protection, for purpose, for belonging?  
  
_Food._  
  
What are Yoshimura-san and the staff of Anteiku, the kindred spirits who extended their hands, who gives themselves as refuge?  
  
_Food._  
  
  
_Food, food, food, food, food._  
  
  
And he hurts,  _mother_ , he  hurts, and there’s nothing to fill his gaping void and he needs –he needs  _meat_ , sweet meat that mends flesh and bone, meat that satisfies that gnawing deep in his soul.   
  
Mother, mother –why did she have to leave him? Why does everyone leave –he is strong, he will keep them safe. He is weak –it’s why people around him leave, it’s why Moku-san, Tetsu-san, Kei-san, Kouto-kun, it’s why they died; it’s why Ryouko-san died; it’s why mother died. It’s why he can’t be weak, it’s why he has to eat, consume, devour, shred –if they’re in his way, it’s okay to eat them, because it’s their fault, isn’t it?   
  
Because that is the way of the world –the pretty girls in coffee shops devour your intestines and the men in their sharp, white suits crown themselves with a wreath of your fingers, and you eat and break what gets in your way, because that is the world. It is truth, it is justice, it is life.  
  
But why, why is this the world? If this is the world, if these are the colors he must stain himself with –how can he ever touch –

He can’t remember, he can’t remember –what was it again? Why does he do this again? Why does he eat, why does he consume, why does he feel pain?   
  
That’s right, to live. To live is to eat, to consume and Kaneki –  
  
He needs meat, warm flesh, so fresh that blood drips sluggishly, pulses sluggishly to the beat of a heart –alive, alive, alive –and stains him when he tears in. Meat, so that he can survive, live, save –

Manager, manager, Yoshimura-san, he needs to –  
  
Find someone, take them into him, catch every last drop of them on his tongue; savor the frisson of energy that sparks through him –power, power to protect, destroy, guard, rend asunder, because he is gaping, he is falling to pieces, because Amon –  
  
– can’t die, don’t die Amon, don’t, because if Amon does, he’ll be –  
  
He’ll be a killer, and killers are locked away, tightly, where nothing, not even the wind can reach and –  
  
if he’s somewhere where Hide can’t reach, then where will he go?   
  
It’s okay –he doesn’t need anywhere to go, he never had anywhere to go anyways; he never needed that. All he ever needed was –the taste of soft, yielding flesh beneath his mouth, the burst of sweetness on his tongue, the melody of terror dancing in his ears –to be full, satisfied. Everything is relative –apartment, colleagues, ghouls, food. He can find another place, always another, because that is the privilege of the strong, because the strong can survive anywhere; everything else is food for the taking. He can just walk –walk to another ward, another life, find –  
  
Centipedes, watch as they wriggle and crawl, as they dig holes, deep, deep holes as he cuts and carves in counterpoint to laughter –his own or someone else’s? Does it matter? Digs deeper, ever deeper, into flesh and bone, decorates himself in their red, their terror, taste their despair from their fingers –his fingers, smile because this is his –

But it’s not his _,_ the body is  _his_ , it belongs to  _him_ , Kaneki Ken, and not –  
  
Not Rize, not Yamori, not the poor dredges, the failures, of Kanou’s, not the disgusting vultures of the Ghoul Restaurant –Kaneki Ken. He is Kaneki Ken and he has –  
  
Important people; Anteiku, Manager, Hinami, Banjou, Touka, Hide…  
  
But they’re eating him,  _they’re eating him_ , and he can’t remember –why is he here, why is he in pain?  _Why, why, why, why, why._  
  
But this is his, this body belongs to him, he won’t give it to anyone. He needs it, because –  
  
“Yo, Kaneki!” the illusion of Hide says, because Kaneki has fallen too far, is buried under too much sin, for even the strongest of winds to reach him now, “What’s with the get up? That in style these days?”  
  
And it hurts, because this can’t be Hide, because he is so lost he can’t find himself; if he can’t do that, how can Hide? So he’s dreaming, dreaming again –  
  
His dreams are always of another time, of sunshine and movies and laughter and warm, familiar arms around him –yellow like the sunflowers, like the gold of the sea at sunset, like the gleam of Hide’s hair beneath the rising sun.   
  
He must be dreaming, because the alternative is that Hide knows –and that means, that means  _he knows_ ; that Kaneki is different and those dreams are something they can never return to. That he’s a  _monster_ , that he eats other people, humans, to survive, that he looks at Hide and – _hungers_ , it aches so deep in him, he is so empty, he needs just a little, just enough to be full again, and it’s okay because Hide is his friend, right? His friend.  
  
And this Hide says such sweet words, reaches out for him even as he sobs, “Hide… I hear these voices… Run away… or I’ll…” because he can’t take this chance, not with Hide. Because even if this is an illusion, Hide is the one person he cannot, must never, touch, not like that, never like that.  
  
“…Sorry,” Kaneki’s dream says, voice full of sorrow, as if he knows something Kaneki doesn’t, “Can you fight with all you’ve got, just one more time?” And gently, insistently, pushes his head down with firm, kind hands tangled in his hair; Kaneki can taste the sweat of him, smell the sweet smell of summer breezes on him, of, “Hide,” he cries, because this dream is too real, too familiar. And bites, because that hand, so warm and familiar, and his hunger, so deep it consumes him…  
  
“Kaneki Ken, don’t forget the beauty of the moon when I’m gone.”  
  
  
\--  
  
  
Hide is water; he slips through Kaneki’s fingers, red and sticky, until only the taste of him lingers, sweet, on his tongue.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In case you didn’t know what Nagachika Hideyoshi means… It is made up of the characters "Forever Near" and "Bright/Smart Good". Also, thank you feverly for checking over the last bit to make sure it wouldn’t be misinterpreted!

Hide is in the newspaper; he is a casual mention, an afterthought in the larger, more important scope of things. The article describes the raid on the tiny café Anteiku. It describes the nest of ghouls that hid behind the respectable sheen of its doors and windows and friendly staff. It reports the brutal maiming and brutal of the honorable and valiant CCG investigators who had infiltrated this den of evil in order to cleanse it –and then, as if struck by a passing thought, it slips in the name of an assistant, barely nineteen years, who had, in the commotion and chaos of it all, wandered into the sewers, ill-prepared and unawares, only to be devoured, savagely, brutally. His picture, tiny and grainy in all its monochrome glory, is thrown in as if to fill in white space and Kaneki’s stomach  _turns_.  
  
How is this Hide?   
  
How is this all Hide gets, how is this the only mark he will leave behind in this world now that he is gone? A footnote to be lost in the tumultuous waves of history –how does Hide deserve this? How.  
  
Why.  
  
Why is Hide gone when he is still here, still so painfully here and alive.  
  
\--  
  
Three years drag by and Kaneki is on his knees, nose a hair’s breadth away from the clean, clean floors of the Nagachika house, because he  _needs_  this. He needs to see Hide, needs to fill that gaping part of him that never fills, no matter how much it aches or how much he eats or how much love he receives from those around him.   
  
It is not loneliness that consumes him, but guilt. Anguish.  
  
“Please,” he begs, “I need to see him. He was –he was my best friend.”  
  
Mrs. Nagachika’s fingers are clenched, digging into the fabric of her dress, her husband’s hand covering her white knuckles, and Kaneki thinks _I did this_. Because he did –they aren’t even sixty and they’ve lost their only son, their only child, and have been living on despite him –grieving, oh how they must grieve –and there is nowhere to point but at him. He knows he shouldn’t be here, he knows he is unwanted and even hated, but how can he leave without something to absolve this ache of loss and guilt, his own grief?  
  
So he stays, folded in supplication, pleading.  
  
“I understand, Kaneki-kun,” Mr. Nagachika says stiffly as he rises, his wife protests, catching his hand with a stern “ _Dear, no,_ ” but he gently frees his hand and says, “Hideyoshi would want to see him.” He disappears deeper into the apartment and Kaneki cries into the smooth floor because  _it’s what Hide would have wanted_ , and it hurts to think that Hide would have wanted anything for Kaneki, after everything.  He deserves less, but he has always deserved less than Hide.   
  
“We received this with his last testament,” Hide’s father says when returns, sliding a pristine book onto the table.  _The Black Goat’s Egg_. Kaneki’s stomach drops. Inside, there is the crisp signature ‘Takatsuki Sen,’ the generic words, ‘To my constant fan, Kaneki Ken,’ and the very particular words, ‘who liked the cannibalistic serial killer Unita.’  
  
Hide, who had always complained that the books he read were ‘incomprehensible’ that’d do nothing but make him fall asleep, had shown up to the signing, had not only shown up, but read her books, for Kaneki. For Kaneki, who had disappeared from his life, who had often been too wrapped up in his own agendas and crusade to think of Hide.   
  
Hide, who had always, always been thinking of Kaneki.  
  
“Thank  you…” he says, because there is nothing else he can say but ‘I’m sorry’ and ‘it’s all my fault.’  
  
“This is where Hideyoshi's ashes are buried,” Mr. Nagachika continues, sliding a slip of paper to him before getting up, “After you have seen him, please do not return. To this house or to the family grave; you have brought enough misfortune to this family.”  
  
“Please leave,” Mrs. Nagachika says, unable to look at Kaneki.  
  
“I’m sorry for the intrusion,” Kaneki apologizes as he leaves.  
  
 _I’m sorry._  
  
\--  
  
Kaneki finds Hide by the sea.  
  
He sets down his flowers before the Nagachika family grave and pays his respects.  
  
He does not weep, does not linger –this place is not for people like him.  
  
He asks, “Hide, what am I supposed to do when I don’t have you to go home to?”  
  
\--  
  
Kaneki returns, again, to Hide’s grave, nearly two years later.  
  
“I’m married,” he says, “Four days ago –to Touka-chan.”   
  
He worries the unfamiliar ring on his finger, wonders why he is here, he shouldn’t be here –but he  _needs_  to be here, knows this like he knows he needs Hide, has always needed Hide. “She is good for me, Touka won’t let me live in my own world. She keeps me grounded. She won’t let me stray.” He seeks Hide’s approval, as if some part of him lingers, a phantom, to watch over him like Hide always did when he was alive. “ _You_  were good for me.”  
  
The admission feels like a revelation, and he chokes on his next words, “You still are.”   
  
Hide will never be his past; Hide is a part of him.  
  
“Just watch,” he promises, “I’ll live a life anyone would be proud of. I’ll live the life you wanted.”  
  
 _You saved me. You were always saving me._  
  
 _You still save me._  
  
\--  
  
“Touka is pregnant,” he announces into the winter chill, “I’m going to be a father.”  
  
If he closes his eyes, Kaneki can hear Hide’s voice, can feel the firm clap of Hide’s hand on his shoulder,  _“Congratulations, man! Boy or girl? Man, you have to come with me, we gotta get drunk! I mean, I have to get drunk; you need to sit in the corner and drink coffee like the nerd you are while I have all the fun. Man, a father, I can’t believe it!”_  
  
Maybe that’s why he’s here, because he needs the reassurance. He needs to know that he’s doing the right thing; that he’ll do right by his child. That he’ll be a great father, a fantastic father.  
  
He won’t leave his child behind, he promises. He thinks of all the painful separations that plague ghoul children and knows he has to do better, try harder, than he ever has, because he owes his child that. He owes them enough to live.  
  
“I will never let them wish they were worth living for, I will make sure they always know that they are loved.”  
  
 _I’ll always think of them, they’ll always be my priority._  
  
 _Like I was always yours._  
  
\--

“I’ve always thought that, if someone were to cast me as the hero of a story, it’d definitely be a tragedy. That day… when I woke up and I was different –when I learned I was a ghoul, I knew it couldn’t be any truer. But… that’s not true, is it?” He gazes at the distant sea, the bright gold of the setting sun and smiles, “I realized it when my daughter was born. It’s only a tragedy if I let it end as one.”  
  
Kaneki thinks of the first day they met –how easily that boy, still only eight, with a dripping nose and toothy smile, had bridged that gap so wide no one else had been able to cross, of how, even after the loss of his mother, he was never truly alone and knows, “But it was never a tragedy, was it.”  
  
“My life could have never been a tragedy because you were there with me.”  
  
He dusts off the seat of his pants when the sky begins to purple and knows he cannot linger any longer. “I have something else to tell you, Hide,” he admits. “Something important.”  
  
“Yoshie. My daughter’s name is Yoshie.”  
  
\--  
  
Four years… they pass so quickly, now.   
  
Four years since his daughter was born.  
  
Four years since he last visited Hide.  
  
“We’ve been trying to raise our daughter among humans,” he confides, because there is no one else to tell. Because he can’t tell Touka, doesn’t want to ever express uncertainty in their daughter –because she could never disappoint him, never –but there is always that lingering fear. What if. “It’s probably the most stressful thing; we live in constant fear. What if it’s too early for her, what if –what if, one day, she gets hungry. She’s only four, we can’t expect herculean restraint from her. What if –” And it’s hard to say it, to admit it, even if it’s only for Hide to hear, “What if she makes the same mistake as me, Hide. What if she hurts someone important to her.”  
  
She’s only four, she’s only four, she’s only four.  
  
He was so much older, so much wiser, and he failed, he failed twice and those were the only two chances he got, because after –  
  
“But we want Yoshimura-san’s dream to come true,” he says, “We want to prove that it’s possible –that humans and ghouls can live together. That –that it’s possible for us to live amongst one another in peace.  
  
“But maybe we’re asking too much of her, maybe we’re being unfair, asking her to carry all our hopes and dreams. She’s so small, Hide, so tiny. You should have seen her when she was born; she was so small she looked like an American football in Yomo-san’s arms. And she’s still so small, Hide, and we’re being cruel, to put such a heavy burden on such slight shoulders.”  
  
But, he doesn’t want his daughter to grow up like Hinami, in the shadows. He doesn’t want his daughter to inherit the shadows of the ghouls, he wants his daughter to always live in the light, to live under the sun, always. His daughter, who has wings like her mother, deserves to soar in bright, open skies, not furtively in the darkness.  
  
“I want her to see the world, I want her to know the world I knew when you were alive.”  
  
 _I miss you._  
  
 _You should be here._  
  
 _You should be here, with us. With me._  
  
\--  
  
“I’m a grandfather, Hide. Yoshie married a human boy last year and…” the words catch in his throat, he can feel tears welling up, unbidden, “It’s a baby boy. A healthy baby boy with the biggest, sunniest smile.”  
  
And tears fall, for the first time, and he lays a hand on the smooth stone surface of the grave and says, “I’m a grandfather and Yoshimura’s dream is on the horizon. There’s still some time before it comes true, but we can finally see sunlight peeking over the dark, endless horizon.”  
  
 _If only, it had happened sooner, if only you had lived to see it, Hide._  
  
 _If only it had always been like this, you would still be here._  
  
 _If only, if only._  
  
\--  
  
Kaneki is seventy-two and his joints ache as he lowers himself down in front of the Nagachika family grave –how had he gotten so old, he often wonders, that he is left feeble? He is certain that Yoshimura-san hadn’t succumbed to the wear and tear of time as he had; maybe he didn’t age gracefully at all.  
  
“I’m an old man now, Hide, and I’ve lived a long and fulfilling life,” he says, patting his knees as if their faint arthritis is proof of it all, “For the longest time, I had thought it was for you. I was determined to live life for you; now that you were gone I had to live for two.” And he reaches out, with trembling hands, he traces the ‘forever’ on the polished stone, “But old men have no need to hide behind lies like young men do.” He traces the gilded character for ‘near,’ lets the tears fall where they may.  
  
“Nagachika Hideyoshi, I love you.”

_I have always loved you, I will always love you._   
  
_You were never far, for I carried you safely in my heart, tucked away from the world. I hid you so deeply inside of me, guarded you so preciously._   
  
_Today, I set you free._

 

**Author's Note:**

> Title gratuitously lifted from a mishearing of the lyrics from "Think of You" from A Fine Frenzy.


End file.
